Project overview
The firm offers conveyancing, family and private client services from offices in Manchester. Their website had grown over years of plugins and page-builder add-ons.
They wanted a site that was fast, easy to update and built to win enquiries, without losing their existing rankings.
A slow site that was hard to change
Our audit found three problems:
Bloated theme
A multipurpose theme loaded scripts and styles for features the firm never used.
Failing Core Web Vitals
Mobile pages failed LCP and CLS, frustrating visitors and hurting search visibility.
Difficult editing
Simple text changes needed a developer because layouts broke easily.
What success looked like
- Load in under two secondson mobile.
- Pass Core Web Vitalsacross all templates.
- Make editing safe and simplefor the marketing team.
Our approach, step by step
- 1
Audit and plan Week 1
Measured every template, listed plugins and mapped URLs to protect rankings.
- 2
Lean rebuild Weeks 2–5
Rebuilt the site with a lightweight Elementor setup and ACF fields for services, people and offices.
- 3
Speed and SEO Weeks 4–6
Optimised images and fonts, removed unused scripts and added LegalService schema.
- 4
Launch Week 7
Launched with redirects, tested forms and trained the team.
Before and after: speed and conversion
Key templates measured before the rebuild vs one month after launch.
| Metric | Before | After | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile load time | 6.4s | 1.1s | ▼ 5.3s |
| Largest Contentful Paint | 5.1s | 1.4s | ▼ 3.7s |
| Layout shift (CLS) | 0.28 | 0.02 | ▼ 0.26 |
| Form completion rate | 3.0% | 4.1% | ▲ 37% |
The results
Load times fell sharply after launch and have stayed fast as the firm adds content.
“The new site is fast, looks professional and we can finally update it ourselves without breaking anything.”